Anyone have any experience or feedback with either of these programs? TIA!

ETA: I just signed up for a trial of DreamBox as well and we really like it so far too! I am so torn between DreamBox and Math-Whizz! IXL offers the practice, which has been great, but I don't know if I like it *enough* to subscribe to it or not...the other two are awesome so far :( GAH!

Gabriele DS (11/05) - ...it is nothing like school, and we are never at home...so why is it called homeschooling?

We use IXl math, but only on a free basis...we don't pay the extra money for a membership. The daily practice that they allow you is plenty for DS (5). I like it because it aligns with state standards and spells out all of the standards for me. DS likes it because they make it fun, but not in an annoying cartoony kind of way.

I will have to check out Math Whizz, because I have never heard of it...off to google!

Yeah, we do IXL practice, but I was looking to maybe take advantage of the co-op deal. They have one for Math Whizz as well, and I've read great reviews, but am still on the fence since it's a bit pricey.

jet's been using math whizz for months. i LOVE it. he LOVES it. i cannot say enough good things about it. he learns so much so fast and retains it. he really really enjoys it. it keeps good records for looking back and tracking progress and seeing what has been covered. it does a good job of explaining math concepts in different ways so he can really get it. i'm able to preview lessons ahead so i can plan games or activities to introduce or reinforce concepts that he's going to be working on that week. we started in october and he's done an average of 1 and a half hours a week of it and still loves it and asks to do it.

i wanted to add that jet is very familiar with the computer and i think it might not work for a kids his age (5) that didn't have strong basic mouse skills.

My DS is also 5 and is great with the computer (he's been doing Headsprout and other games for a while), and we practiced with the trial too, so I think he's good in that aspect. We are working through the trial of DreamBox and he's almost done with the entire Kindergarten 'curriculum' after just a week of playing, and it's making me want to lean even more to the side of Math Whizz b/c I think it's more broadened learning and things seem to change up a little more. DreamBox has kept his interest with animations and such, but I have a feeling it won't last long at all.

Gabriele DS (11/05) - ...it is nothing like school, and we are never at home...so why is it called homeschooling?

My kids LOVE Headsprout, so we were looking for something similar for math as well. We signed up for the dreambox trial last night after looking at this thread and today it seems to be a hit. Since it's new, my type A personality 6 year old has played for over an hour and is almost through with the K level stuff, and is doing bits of 1 and 2 at the same time as finishing up with K. My laid-back 5 year old tested out of the counting stuff, and is working on some of the other K topics.

Assuming they aren't totally done with the program by the time the trial is up (my 6 might be but my 5 won't), we'll probably subscribe monthly. That way we can just drop it when they move past it and look for something else if there is still an interest. I like that it's subscription instead of a fee broken up over a payment plan like headsprout, because there's really no downside if the kids fly through it. With Headsprout, I may end up paying the entire $200 for a program my oldest only uses for like 3 months before getting to the end. With Dreambox, if he gets done in 3 months, then we can stop paying the 12 bucks per month and look for something else.

Having said that, Headsprout has definitely been worth it to my 6 year old. I am pretty laid-back and am not really great at providing him with this kind of achievement based goal system that he likes. Even though my younger one isn't so into that goal-reaching aspect, he does get a lot out of playing the learning games and is really geeked that he can read actual words during story time. I guess we'll see if Dreambox appeals to both in different ways as well. So far, it seems to.

We opted for Math Whizz. We tried out DreamBox and do *like* it, but I really LOVE the reports that Math Whizz offers and thought it was a bit more thorough than DreamBox is. He's loving it so far and I am extremely happy with the program!

Gabriele DS (11/05) - ...it is nothing like school, and we are never at home...so why is it called homeschooling?

We use IXl math, but only on a free basis...we don't pay the extra money for a membership. The daily practice that they allow you is plenty for DS (5). I like it because it aligns with state standards and spells out all of the standards for me. DS likes it because they make it fun, but not in an annoying cartoony kind of way.

I will have to check out Math Whizz, because I have never heard of it...off to google!

??? so if you set up a user name and password -- then you can do 20 questions a day? each day?

Momma Aimee...I can't get my quote to work right now, but on IXL.com you don't even have to set up a username to use the free practice. DS has outgrown the practice and was begging, yes BEGGING to do more math, so we signed up for the year. How can I argue with a child begging to do more math-lol??

We opted for Math Whizz. We tried out DreamBox and do *like* it, but I really LOVE the reports that Math Whizz offers and thought it was a bit more thorough than DreamBox is. He's loving it so far and I am extremely happy with the program!

just asking if you are still happy -- still haven't made any hard chocies here. :0)

just asking if you are still happy -- still haven't made any hard chocies here. :0)

I am still very happy with Math Whizz :D I do have to remind myself to NOT help him at all when he's doing the lesson though b/c a couple of times I have guided him when he had a question and while he did GET it, it progresses naturally with your child, so the next lesson gets even harder, when it should be better for him to practice a little more at that same level for a little bit. I found that in the 1 or 2 instances, I just had him do replay of those lessons and he did fine.

I still wonder if DreamBox may have been a better choice for us in the moment...I definitely don't regret getting Math Whizz, but if money was no object, I would probably be doing DreamBox right now and holding off MathWhizz for another couple of months...IDK! They are BOTH really great programs!!

Gabriele DS (11/05) - ...it is nothing like school, and we are never at home...so why is it called homeschooling?

Forum-crashing...we have an IXL subscription. DS' school uses it, so we don't pay for his subscription. His teacher can access his information as well. We do pay for a subscription for DD. I like it for the alignment with state standards so that I can know if there are areas where they're missing knowledge.

We're currently trying the free trial of Math Whizz, and I'm just not sure it's enough for us to truly judge it. And there are things I'm a bit put off by...

My daughter is 4, doing level K. First, we did the assessment, and she was able to do nearly everything. For some reason, a few times in the middle of the assessment, there were full-on 'lessons', or practices anyway, where there was a set of 10 questions on the same topic. That darn turtle who counts from 20-30, ten times in a row, seemed pretty unnecessary for an "assessment".

After the assessment, though, we didn't get any results. I was looking forward to seeing her 'math age' and the nice little bar graph, but it seems all the parent report stuff is only available once you're actually a paid member. The "lessons" that she completed during the assessment are showing up in her history, with her bronze or silver medals for them or whatever.

The free trial apparently includes the first 5 lessons. So she started doing those after the assessment... and they were the same bloody lessons as during the assessment! She had only done 3, so there are 2 she hadn't yet done. But the other 3 were the same. Even though she had completed them with 90 or 100% in the assessment. So... what was the point of assessing her level, if it just then does the same thing again? And we had to endure that darn turtle 15 more times!!! (10 for the practice, 5 for the test... ugh).

If it's just that the trial gives the first 5 lessons for that grade regardless of assessed levels, then what's the point? Why do the assessment at all? It doesn't show off their automated leveling system or how it supposedly adapts to the student or whatever.

Then there are the typos... "Which is the narrrower bus". Or the aural sentence doesn't match the written one (same meaning but different wording, which can be confusing). Or there was one question on the assessment were the written sentence (and the expected answer) was to write the missing numbers from one to ten, but the aural sentence said one to eleven.

I also don't see how the 'lessons' are 'lessons'. They're just 10 practices, with no instruction or explanation. There's a sample one first to show you what to do, but if you don't understand that, then there's no additional help. And many of them, it's not clear what the point of it is. Matching chairs to animals... are they supposed to be practicing estimating? Counting all chairs and all animals? Comparing rows? In other words, are they supposed to be practicing particular strategies or are the strategies irrelevant? One exercise (counting soldiers) seemed to specifically be about "counting on" in order to add, but I wouldn't call "counting on" a "mental strategy" (which they were calling it), it's the default strategy for most kids and "mental strategies" are things you do in order NOT to count on.

Anyway, so far I'm underwhelmed, not convinced that the trial is showing the best features of the site, and uncertain that the math instruction is actually all that great. So... could those who love it, give me a bit more detail about what's so great about it? Other than "my kid loves it", I mean. :) Of course they'll love anything with cartoons and animations and decorating rooms and stuff. My DD loved it so far too. I just have to be convinced of the QUALITY of the program itself before shelling out $$ because there are free 'fun things' like that all over the place.

Heather, that turtle did us in too. My DS is a very visual learner (and not a very great listener) so he just didn't get it. He has a speech disorder and has communicated with ASL his entire life so I'm sure that has a lot too do with it. So yeah... Needless to say, we didn't even make it through the assessment! We're doing Time4Learning now and the math portion has worked a lot better for us so far. My only complaint is that the Kindy level language arts starts off with syllables and that sort of thing before it moves on to phonics. That seemed a little backwards to me, but maybe DS just learns backwards. LOL

how do you register for a free trial on Math Whizz? When i click on 'parents' I see on the subscribe now option. The free trial option is for teachers and educators. Does it still work if you register as a teacher? Can one do it?

The program sounds interesting and cute, but for that much money, I'd like a free trial, so that my kids can have a chance to see whether they like it or not. So anyone registered as a teacher and it worked out?

I ended up subsribing, and I'm put off by the same things. So here's my review after using it for 5 days ;-).

DD (9) has good understanding of concepts, but very low math confidence. She was also expressing a desire to be better at math. We unschool, and up until now she had only minimal math instruction, here and there, and I expected her to be low on her 'math age'. So with this in mind, here are my thoughts.

The Good:

The program keeps her interest, and so far she spent over an hour each day, and when they remind her to take a breake, she's surprised that she's been on it for so long. Time definitely flies for her. She still says she doesn't like math, but there are many things that she enjoyes about the program. She learned some concepts that she didn't know before.

She is motivated to be the whizzer of the week.

She is motivated to get more credits so that she can buy her pets and pet food.

I like the animations and the visual explanations.

I like that I can message her via my account--she loves getting my messages and replying to them.

I like that I can preview the next 3 lessons, and that I can skip a lesson for her. For example there was a timed lesson, and we skipped that as she doesn't like when she needs to beat the clock, and she was directed right into the test on the subject.

She likes the program much better than the 'free fun things', because most of the free math games availalbe either require rapid recall and are timed, or feature some kind o shooting. She is not into games, especially not fast paced games.

The Things I can't help but Question: (aka the bad)

1. Where are the "lessons?" Where are the "multiple explanations of the same topic in different ways"? Each lesson is a 5 second animation of the concept. You get it--great. You don't get it? You endure 10, excrutiatingly slowly going questions, during which you have no clue of what to do. There are no interim explanations. Is she supposed to guess? There's no way to go back. There's no way to access the initial explanation, never mind a different one. This is frustrating. I end up explaining the concept myself to her, so she can move on. Not to do it is simply cruel and counterproductive.

2. Even if there's a measurable math age, I question how mathwhizz measures it. DD was assessed at 7.64 math age. Now, after 5 days her alleged math age is 7.99. Which is all fine and dandy, if her projected progress wasn't estimated at 19 years old by the end of the year. This is supposed to be encouraging to parents, I guess, but what the heck does it even mean? If she keeps plugging in the hours, she'd be college level in a year? Riiiiiiiiiight.

3. Several of the topics she wasn't tested on--space / shapes (early geometry) and data handling, for example. These are actually the topics she is good at. She is being offered K level tasks on them--over and over again, while her alleged math age on those tasks slowly grows. With the slowest rate of all. Never mind that in my opinion the questions that are offered are suitable for a 5 year old.

4. On the other hand, she WAS assessed on place value, and made several mistakes on some very basic questions, due to not understanding the language and rushing through (she knows some of the concepts only in Russian). Ironically, she was assessed the highest in this topic, at her actual age. I found the correlation between the assessment questions and the assessment results incredibly shaky.

5. Yes, there are typos and mismatches with oral vs. written.

The Verdict?

For my math-ambivalent 9yo it seems like a great fit so far. Even though I suspect that their claims of being like a 'tutor' are vastly exaggerated, I'm glad we subsribed. However, I don't think the program warrants the price, for what it is (we got it at 50% discount, and the price is still steep). Reading Eggs, for example, offers much more in terms of animations / programming, games, and curb appeal, and is considerably cheaper. I think the only reason Math Whizz is getting away with the cost is because they say they are cheaper than a private tutor. Well, nice try, but they are not a tutor either. They need to be transparent about their programming and how the 'individualised' programs are actually delivered and adjusted to each child. For example, I do suspect that the time it takes a child to respond to a question is factored into the 'mastery' level. I wonder i this is the only factor, other than the obvious mistakes. But the moment DD hears 'answer as quickly as you can', she sips her tea before answering :lol (Also their site reeks of infomercials, with very little relevant information, while trying to look like there's more information than there's actually available.)

If a child is already doing well in math, or has good levels of math confidence, the program might be fun (nothing wrong with being fun, in my books), but if money is an issue, not actually needed.

I will come back to this, as we use the program more and do another review.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tankgirl73

*bump*

We're currently trying the free trial of Math Whizz, and I'm just not sure it's enough for us to truly judge it. And there are things I'm a bit put off by...

My daughter is 4, doing level K. First, we did the assessment, and she was able to do nearly everything. For some reason, a few times in the middle of the assessment, there were full-on 'lessons', or practices anyway, where there was a set of 10 questions on the same topic. That darn turtle who counts from 20-30, ten times in a row, seemed pretty unnecessary for an "assessment".

After the assessment, though, we didn't get any results. I was looking forward to seeing her 'math age' and the nice little bar graph, but it seems all the parent report stuff is only available once you're actually a paid member. The "lessons" that she completed during the assessment are showing up in her history, with her bronze or silver medals for them or whatever.

The free trial apparently includes the first 5 lessons. So she started doing those after the assessment... and they were the same bloody lessons as during the assessment! She had only done 3, so there are 2 she hadn't yet done. But the other 3 were the same. Even though she had completed them with 90 or 100% in the assessment. So... what was the point of assessing her level, if it just then does the same thing again? And we had to endure that darn turtle 15 more times!!! (10 for the practice, 5 for the test... ugh).

If it's just that the trial gives the first 5 lessons for that grade regardless of assessed levels, then what's the point? Why do the assessment at all? It doesn't show off their automated leveling system or how it supposedly adapts to the student or whatever.

Then there are the typos... "Which is the narrrower bus". Or the aural sentence doesn't match the written one (same meaning but different wording, which can be confusing). Or there was one question on the assessment were the written sentence (and the expected answer) was to write the missing numbers from one to ten, but the aural sentence said one to eleven.

I also don't see how the 'lessons' are 'lessons'. They're just 10 practices, with no instruction or explanation. There's a sample one first to show you what to do, but if you don't understand that, then there's no additional help. And many of them, it's not clear what the point of it is. Matching chairs to animals... are they supposed to be practicing estimating? Counting all chairs and all animals? Comparing rows? In other words, are they supposed to be practicing particular strategies or are the strategies irrelevant? One exercise (counting soldiers) seemed to specifically be about "counting on" in order to add, but I wouldn't call "counting on" a "mental strategy" (which they were calling it), it's the default strategy for most kids and "mental strategies" are things you do in order NOT to count on.

Anyway, so far I'm underwhelmed, not convinced that the trial is showing the best features of the site, and uncertain that the math instruction is actually all that great. So... could those who love it, give me a bit more detail about what's so great about it? Other than "my kid loves it", I mean. :) Of course they'll love anything with cartoons and animations and decorating rooms and stuff. My DD loved it so far too. I just have to be convinced of the QUALITY of the program itself before shelling out $$ because there are free 'fun things' like that all over the place.

My daughter has used IXL for one semester but she found the math questions were very boring and repetitive. My friend recommended Beestar to us instead. Now my daughter has been using its web-based math program for nearly two years and her math ability has been significantly improved.
Beestar's math program is always free to use. She completes two math exercises each week. A solid foundation is very important to future study. As she told me, the questions are fun, from easy to hard, leading her to comprehend math knowledge step by step.
She likes Beestar's reward system. Everytime she saw her name on the honor roll, she was very excited. Although her math performance stands out in her school, she can always meet many other competitive peers on Beestar. There are some other core subject programs on Beestar as well, such as language arts, social studies. My friend say they are excellent too so I will let my daughter try them soon.

My daughter has used IXL for one semester but she found the math questions were very boring and repetitive. My friend recommended Beestar to us instead. Now my daughter has been using its web-based math program for nearly two years and her math ability has been significantly improved.
Beestar's math program is always free to use. She completes two math exercises each week. A solid foundation is very important to future study. As she told me, the questions are fun, from easy to hard, leading her to comprehend math knowledge step by step.
She likes Beestar's reward system. Everytime she saw her name on the honor roll, she was very excited. Although her math performance stands out in her school, she can always meet many other competitive peers on Beestar. There are some other core subject programs on Beestar as well, such as language arts, social studies. My friend say they are excellent too so I will let my daughter try them soon.

I agree with Rosemary. I teach an after-school program in California and my students have various responses to the different types of worksheets and websites I use. Some of them enjoy using drill practices (like IXL and Kumon), others enjoy using Beestar. I've noticed that it is mainly based on a few simple reasons. IXL and Kumon felt mostly like drill practices. IXL stressed out some of my students that are not used to having a timer next to them (some of my students enjoyed it). It was also stressful for my students because if they missed one question they were less likely to reach 100% (which is similar to today's standard testing but for my 2nd graders they did not enjoy it whatsoever). Overall Beestar kept my students interested in learning math and also boosting their confidence. It is also free and I can track their progress online (and also show the parents when they ask). For me the most important aspect of an after-school program was to help students get more attention on subjects they needed help on (compared to school) and Beestar provided me the tools that I needed.